China launches astronaut crew on six-month space station mission
Al Jazeera
The mission plans to set a new record for the time spent in space by Chinese astronauts.
China has launched a three-person crew for a six-month mission on board its space station that is planned at setting a new record for the time spent in space by Chinese astronauts as the country moves towards completing the orbiting structure.
The Shenzhou-13 spaceship carrying the three astronauts was launched by a Long March-2F rocket at 12:25am local time on Saturday (04:25 GMT on Friday).
It is expected to complete docking with the Tianhe module within the next six hours, beginning the mission that will continue the work of the first three-person crew that spent 90 days on board. Those crew members conducted two spacewalks and deployed a 10-metre (33-foot) mechanical arm before returning to Earth in mid-September.